The deafening up and down pitch of the cicada’s songs can sometimes gnaw at the solitude of one’s brain waves. One moment your thoughts are calm and clear, and the next, the cicadas saw-like vibration intensifies, notch by notch, until all peace vanishes.

What is the motive behind these alien-like bug forms? Are they possibly listening devices transmitting human banter to alternative universes for evaluation? Or quite possibly, they’re only releasing their inner frustrations at being one of the least attractive life forms on the planet except, of course, for the uncomely naked mole rat. Upon further research, I discovered their songs are merely their mating calls, and judging by their intensity, they seem to have quite the libido. The unique sound is not produced vocally, but through organs on their hollow abdomens, called tymbals. Their muscles pop them in and out to create their distinctive vibrating pitch and the males are the only ones who sing.

Aside from this incessant drone, they don’t appear to be highly motivated. They prefer to lounge and meditate on unoccupied surfaces such as sidewalks, screen doors, cars, fences and brick walls, but mostly they abide in the tree tops and are not at odds with humans.

They do not eat solid food, but instead, use their slender straw-like mouth parts to drink tree fluids from the weakest limbs and branches of trees. In other words, they prune them, serving a useful purpose. Another one of their better traits is that they don’t bite or bother people like mosquitoes, although you may be unfortunate enough to cross one’s flight path and have the bejesus jolted out of you.

Cicadas have five eyes— two large ones and three ocelli situated between the two main ones— that are used to detect light and darkness. Ocelli, in Latin, means little eyes. They are drawn to bright lights at night.

Like all creatures on Earth, they too, have natural predators. Their most lethal ones are killer wasps, who sting and carry them back to their nests to lay their eggs under.

Long ago in different cultures, they were used as a substitute for money, in home medicines, for forecasting the weather, and provided song to the people of China. They symbolized rebirth and immortality in Asian traditions. Homer used them as a metaphor in TheIliad, comparing them to the local statesmen, who loudly echoed the need for war in ancient Greece, while perched like cicadas on the lofty limbs of giant oaks.

The first title of Aesop’s fable, in 520 B.C., was not “The Grasshopper and the Ant.” It was mistranslated over the years, and yes, the subject of this column was one of the original main characters.

On a personal level, my dog, Beau, loves to eat cicadas. I discourage it, but he can’t resist. To him, they are like canine shrimp. Even after years of trying to deter this behavior, he still occasionally manages to get one in his mouth and secretly brings it in the house. It’s quite the scene when he drops it on the floor, setting off a frantic scramble to contain a zig-zagging, hand buzzer-like cicada.

The cicada has been on the Earth for more than 200 million years and, for this fact alone, they deserve our respect. They are truly the reigning royalty of the insect world.